Thursday, November 2, 2017

I was in New York City a couple of days
ago, when Sayfullo Saipov, a young Uzbek man, drove his truck into a group of
random people, mostly Argentine bikers enjoying a school reunion. In one of the world’s most international
cities, he could have hit practically anyone.

I wasn’t near the scene of the crime,
but I could feel the mood of the city shift from the cool alertness typical of
New Yorkers, to shock, and then to sadness, anger and determination. I read it on the faces of people
walking by, and especially those on bikes.

I don’t have Saipov’s birthdata, but his
age is given as 29, so he was probably born in 1988, when Saturn and Uranus were
traveling together, mostly in the fire sign Sagittarius. Saturn is the planet of respectability and
structure, while Uranus is about change and rebellion, so it’s not an easy
pairing. There’s a tension between the
desire to establish oneself solidly in society, and the equal urge to break out
and do things your own way.

Sometime in the last year, Saipov had
his Saturn return, that time when a person assesses his life, and tries to
figure out if he’s on the right path. At
this point, he was looking for a larger meaning, and there were people there to
convince him that his God would be pleased by some random bloodshed. Human sacrifice has a long history, after
all.

Saturn is currently in Sagittarius - a passionate fire sign, associated with religious and political zealotry. It’s the expansive sign of gods and
heroes. It’s about action inspired by a
greater faith. When Saturn – the planet
of responsibility - is in Sagittarius,
then to act heroically is considered a basic requirement, the price you
pay for your ticket here on earth.

Many brave people have had Saturn in
this sign. This includes some of the most
dynamic freedom fighters of our times – Emma Goldman, Gandhi, Dorothy Day, Che
Guevara, Martin Luther King, Maya Angelou, Paul Robeson, Eartha Kitt, Cesar
Chavez, Mary Daly, Martina Navratilova, and Ellen Degeneres. And Osama bin Laden was also born with Saturn
in Sagittarius, and so was Yasser Arafat. So it doesn’t really say which side
of which struggle you’re on. Just that
you believe in something greater, and are willing to throw yourself into the
fight.

Just nine days after Saturn entered this
sign in 2015, more than two thousand people died during a stampede during the
Hajj pilgrimage in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
These were pilgrims, people who just wanted to fulfill a religious duty,
and they didn’t intend to be the human sacrifices of the day. But Saturn doesn’t give anything without
charging heavily for it, although the price is not usually one’s life.

During Saturn’s time in Sagittarius, we’ve
had a great many terrorist attacks and suicide bombings. They’ve happened at a peace rally in Ankara, an
airport in Istanbul, a concert in Manchester, a street in Mogadishu, a gay nightclub
in Orlando, a promenade in Nice, and throughout Paris – and many more in Iraq,
Afghanistan, Libya and Syria. People have given up their lives for that burst
of glory, and to us, it looks meaningless, because nobody was saved, nobody was
rescued, nothing changed for the better.
But for the perpetrators, it was a last-minute lunge for a glory that they
couldn’t find elsewhere.

November is Saturn’s last month in
Sagittarius, and then it will move on to the practical earth sign
Capricorn. Capricorn is the sign of the
survivor. It’s an ambitious,
goal-oriented sign, so it’s purposeful - but each step is measured, careful, and
pragmatic. It tends to be cynical,
rather than hopeful. There is no rushing
ahead. There are no frills, and nothing is wasted. Old
things are reused, and that includes old traditions and principles – and because
of that, Capricorn tends to be formal, respectable, and well-established.

Does this mean that things won’t change
as quickly while Saturn is in Capricorn? They are more likely to reel backwards a
bit. For example, Saturn was in
Capricorn when Carrie Nation started her crusade against alcohol. She had the sun in Sagittarius, so she was personally
very zealous, but her mission was essentially a negative one. We can expect some backtracking to a more
socially conservative time, although since Saturn will only be here two and a
half years, I don’t think the gay community will lose too much of the progress
we’ve made - hopefully.

Saturn was also in Capricorn when the
first Texas oil gusher was discovered, leading to a huge economic shift. Oil, as the decomposed bodies of marine animals,
is both very old and very useful, and so it’s connected to efficient Capricorn. But Capricorn is also about building blocks, so perhaps
alternate energy forms will become more practical, codified, and formalized
while Saturn is here.

Capricorn is business-oriented, and
there are a lot of savvy people who recognize the potential of future-oriented
businesses, and who will do well. But
there will also be even more people who cling to the businesses of the past,
such as coal-mining, and I expect we’ll see quite a bit of suffering around
that. Profiteers will try to hang on to
their profits, while workers try to hang on to their livelihoods, and both will
go down slowly, like frogs boiling in a pot.

Saturn was in Capricorn during the first
years of Great Depression, 1929 to 1932.
Unemployment reached millions in the US and Europe, and in Germany, the
Nazi Party took hold. They promised both
survival and a return to a glorious past, much like Trump’s message today. But it was also during this time that Gandhi
began to practice civil disobedience, the Vietnamese Communist Party was
established, and the NAACP started its anti-lynching campaign. So there were some that saw survival as a
group effort, requiring structure and organization. And these efforts, though very strenuously opposed,
eventually bore fruit.

I’m not a specialist in economics by any
means, and it’s true that there isn’t a major overturn every time that Saturn enters
Capricorn. There have been times when
the things hummed along economically, and the sign has just shown itself in a
more conservative, conformist social atmosphere. However, there is often a chilling contrast
when a planet moves from rambunctious, enthusiastic Sagittarius into lean,
hungry Capricorn. In 2008, we saw the
economy take a sudden hit when Pluto moved from Sagittarius to Capricorn.

Capricorn is also a sign of wisdom,
because it’s connected to age and experience.
The best manifestation of Saturn in Capricorn would be a populace who is
no longer fooled by the falsities of the ruling class – such as “tax reform”
that mainly benefits the rich. And if
things do get bad, the best manifestation would be a return to survival skills
of the past, and to a simpler but more satisfying way of living. We’ve already seen this trend under Pluto in Capricorn.

And do I think Saturn in Capricorn will
bring down Donald Trump? Yes,
probably. It’s a humbling sign. But do I think that will do a whole lot of
good? No, not really. At least not immediately. I think it will take another six or seven years
before we have a truly progressive political agenda.

And will the spate of suicidal zealots
slow down while Saturn is in Capricorn? Zealotry
is more conducive to violence than despair, it’s true, but some people will still
throw away their lives and the lives of random others. In a world of deprivation, a world of climate
change refugees, some people will die just to spare their families another
mouth to feed.

All we can do is stick together, and keep
working out solutions to the many practical problems that are part of our
existence here. We can work for a world
in which there are many ways to find meaning.
This means small steps, not big glorious gestures. But Saturn in Capricorn is all about small
steps. Our mission is to survive, to learn from our elders, and to keep
ourselves pointed towards the future.